The Historians' History of the World 03

The Second Messenian War was thus terminated by the complete subjugation of the Messenians. Such of them as remained in the country were reduced to a servitude probably not less hard than that which Tyrtæus described them as having endured between the first war and the second. In after-times, the whole territory which figures on the map as Messenia,—south of the river Nedon, and westward of the summit of Taygetus,—appears as subject to Sparta, and as forming the western portion of Laconia. Nor do we hear of any serious revolt from Sparta in this territory until a hundred and fifty years afterwards, subsequent to the Persian invasion—a revolt which Sparta, after serious efforts, succeeded in crushing. So that the territory remained in her power until her defeat at Leuctra, which led to the foundation of Messene by Epaminondas.

Imperfectly as these two Messenian wars are known to us, we may see enough to warrant us in saying that both were tedious, protracted, and painful, showing how slowly the results of war were then gathered, and adding one additional illustration to prove how much the rapid and instantaneous conquest of Laconia and Messenia by the Dorians, which the Heraclid legend sets forth, is contradicted by historical analogy.

The relations of Pisa and Elis form a suitable counterpart and sequel to those of Messenia and Sparta. Unwilling subjects themselves, the Pisatæ had lent their aid to the Messenians, and their king Pantaleon, one of the leaders of this combined force, had gained so great a temporary success, as to dispossess the Eleans of the agonothesia or administration of the games for one Olympic ceremony, in the 34th Olympiad. Though again reduced to their condition of subjects, they manifested dispositions to renew their revolt. These incidents seem to have occurred about the 50th Olympiad, or B.C. 580; and the dominion of Elis over her Periœcid territory was thus as well assured as that of Sparta. The Lacedæmonians, after the close of the Peloponnesian War had left them undisputed heads of Greece, formally upheld the independence of the Triphylian towns against Elis, and seem to have countenanced their endeavours to attach themselves to the Arcadian aggregate, which, however, was never fully accomplished. Their dependence on Elis became loose and uncertain, but was never wholly shaken off.b

CHAPTER VIII. THE IONIANS

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence.

—Milton.

The complete change in the map of Greece at the close of the Achæan period and the origin of the ethnographic system with which the history of Hellenic times begins, were always referred by Greek tradition to a last wandering of north Grecian tribes. The customary chronology places the beginning of this shifting at 1133 or 1124 B.C., i.e., less than three generations after the so-called conquest of Troy. Recent chronological investigations, however, have made it seem probable that a period at least a hundred years later should be chosen.

The first impulse was probably given by new movements of tribes in the north. The advance of the Illyrians caused the Thessalians, a part of the Epirot tribe of the Thesproti, to withdraw across Pindus into the valley of the Peneus, which was afterwards called Thessaly. While the preservation of the Greek character in Epirus was henceforth left to the brave Molossi, the Thessalians east of Pindus fell upon the settled Greeks of the lowlands and destroyed their states. The proudest and most vigorous elements of the old population that survived the war, determined to emigrate and found a new home. Thus, the Arnæ migrated to middle Greece, destroyed the old states of Thebes and Orchomenus in the basin of the Copaïs and united this whole district, which henceforth appears in history as Bœotia, under their rule.

While the Thessalians were making preparations to subjugate the warlike tribes of the highlands about the valley of the Peneus, one of these mountain races, the Dorians, carried the mighty movement on to the extreme south of the Peloponnesus. Within twenty years, according to tradition, they had crossed the narrow strait of Rhium and begun the conquest of the Peloponnesus. They ascended the valley of the Alpheus into southern Arcadia. From here one body of them descended into the Messenian valley of the Pamisus and overwhelmed the old kingdom of the Melidæ of Pylos. The other branch invaded the principal districts of the Achæans in the east and southeast of the Peloponnesus. In open battle the rude Dorian foot-soldiers easily defeated the Achæan knights. But they could not destroy the colossal walls of the Achæan fortresses or cities, and were themselves finally forced to build fortifications from which they could watch or invest the Achæan strongholds until the opportunity was presented of storming them or forcing their capitulation. It was in such a fortified camp that the Dorian capital Sparta had its origin.